Days off, my ass!

I went into work Sunday thinking I would finally have good weather on my days off (Mon & Tues) to catch up on things I needed to get done before the baby onslaught began.

Boy did I ever jinx myself! Before the afternoon was over I had baby calls for 4 bunnies, 4 squirrels and 5 raccoons! Luckily JoAnn was able to advise the woman who called about the bunnies so we skated on that one. I had the 4 squirrels brought to me when I was leaving work and proceeded to bring them to JoAnn's. Together we checked them out and started re hydrating them. Luckily they were in great shape. JoAnn kept them so I could head out and meet the people with the raccoons.

5 babies, about 2 days old at the most. In fact a couple still had some blood matted in the fur I'm guessing from the birth as there were no injuries at all. A raccoon had apparently been seen dead in the road in front of the house 2 days ago....meaning these little ones probably haven't even had a meal and couldn't be worse off. (Not sure a mom that just gave birth would have left the den so soon to get hit, but regardless these guys were motherless for some reason.) When I got them they were cold and one was already agonal and passed shortly thereafter.

Getting the sub q fluids in was easy, but it was a battle getting them to take anything by mouth and reboot their systems. 2 more passed over the course of the night. The remaining 2 were too weak to even try taking anything by mouth so I resorted to tube feeding to try to ever so gradually get the much needed fluids and calories into them.

It has now been 48 hours and I'm happy to report that brother and sister are still hanging in there. We've got poop and weight gain!! But I won't stop holding my breath until at least a week has passed! Sometimes the damage done when the system shuts down sneaks up on you later, after you think they are fine, they suddenly fade on you again.

You can still see the umbilical cord on the little one on the left in this picture. In the middle of all that these 2 baby squirrels came in. Equally as young, something got at the nest. They were found on the ground and have some cuts and bruising on them. They are so tiny I can barely focus on them as I feed them!

So every 2 hours feeding the squirrels and every 3 hours feeding the raccoons makes for a very sleepless me!! (JoAnn, Lisa and Mary are in the same boat too!) Lisa was going to be getting some older squirrels in so we are sort of planning on trading them....once I go back to work there is no way I will be able to feed the little pinkies every 2 hours like they need, so I'll take some older ones that need to eat less often.

Enjoy your vacation Laurie while you can, you lucky dog!! :) It has officially begun.